Sleep leads to alcohol and drug abuse?

Everybody knows that the best thing in the entire world is sleep. Laying your head down at night and not having to do anything except lay there is literally the best thing EVER. Especially when your a teenager. I'm sure that every other teenager can agree with me that sleep is SO much better then sitting in class and doing homework. Actually, I'm sure anyone at every age could.

But anyways, i stumbled across an article in my Psych class and it really drew me in, especially with the title: 'Sleep difficulties in adolescents can predict alcohol and drug problems'. I learned a thing or two from this article and here's some of the things i thought were interesting:

Too much sleep or too little sleep can help predict drug or alcohol related problems.

This makes sense:

"National polls indicate that 27 percent of school-aged children and 45 percent of adolescents do not sleep enough,"

It's obvious many people, especially students in school, do not get enough sleep. I mean come on; we get up at the crack of dawn and we go to bed late at night. Between homework, sports, and clubs, it tires us out. A lack of sleep makes us have poor judgements and doesn't allow us to think as clear as we would with a full light's sleep. This lack of poor judgement can lead to poor decisions AKA drug and alcohol abuse.

What really shocked me though was that too much sleep can lead to these problems as well. I mean, I know that a good night's sleep is essential to everybody's health and helps someone function to their fullest. But I also know that too much sleep could be closely related to depression and a issue with home life or school life. I mean, i know that that's not always the case, but i do know that that could be a factor for when someone sleeps too much.

My reaction is that I'm actually not suprised. It's understandable that too much sleep and a lack of sleep can cause issues with judgement and decisions, and sometimes they can be poor ones. I just hope that if someone has an issue with their sleep or if they feel like they have some form of insomnia, that they get help. Help can really make a difference for sleep. Doctors can perform tests and can figure out whats making them sleep to little or to much. Who knows, maybe that help can even put a barrier between the right state of mind and poor decisions due to issues with sleep.

If you want to read more about the article i found and what sparked the creation of this blog click this link: